NH Liberty Alliance Supports Failed "Sex Work" Bill - Granite Grok

NH Liberty Alliance Supports Failed “Sex Work” Bill

House Bill 1176 would legalize prostitution as long as it is performed indoors in a place where the prostituted person has a right to be. At the public hearing last week, only one person spoke in favor of the bill, sponsor Rep. Max Abramson. Several people, including sex trafficking survivors, spoke passionately against it.

From the legal analysis from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation:

This bill decriminalizes prostituting in one’s home by making the penalties petty fines. However, allowing this to occur in one’s home is not penalized at all, making this a brothel keeping decriminalization bill at its core.

This will hide abuse behind closed doors subjecting women in abusive relationships to more exploitation and harm. This will make all neighborhoods vulnerable to increasingly criminal elements. In other words, trap houses will emerge everywhere and anywhere, and organized crime will be able to move in and act with impunity.

Related: HB1176 Would Have Legalized Prostitution for Any Sex Acts Performed Indoors

Bob Clegg attended, arriving with three women, presumably to lobby for NH Voters Against Human Trafficking whose mission is to “end laws that criminalize prostitution” but none of them spoke.

The bill was so bad that the committee voted 20-0 to Inexpedient to Legislate including Rep. Nicole Klein-Knight who supports the legalization of “sex work.”

But I found one group that supports this bill. The NH Liberty Alliance gave it a thumbs up. Did they even read the bill? Will it be listed as a bill to support on their “Gold Standard” sheet for the next NH House session when the bill is on the consent calendar to be killed by a voice vote along with a raft of other terrible bills? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

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